Spencer Pratt is running for mayor of Los Angeles — but he’s not the only celebrity to try their hand at politics.
Pratt announced the news on January 7, 2026. “The system in Los Angeles isn’t struggling, it’s fundamentally broken,” Pratt, 42, said at the “They Let Us Burn” public demonstration, via the New York Post. “It is a machine designed to protect the people at the top and the friends they exchange favors with while the rest of us drown in toxic smoke and ash. Business as usual is a death sentence for Los Angeles, and I’m done waiting for someone to take real action.”
Pratt continued, “That’s why I am running for mayor. And let me be clear, this just isn’t a campaign, this is a mission, and we’re gonna expose the system.”
The event was held on the first anniversary of the Palisades Fire. Pratt was also spotted signing official candidacy paperwork at the event.
The reality star joins a long line of celebrities who have sought public office of their own — keep scrolling to read more.
Jerry Springer
Jerry SpringerGary Gershoff/Getty Images
Jerry Springer was best known for his career as an actor and talk show host, but he also served on the city council in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a political aide to the late Robert Kennedy and served as mayor of Cincinnati.
Kanye West
Kanye West was a successful rapper and performer before he launched a failed presidential run under the American Independence Party in 2020.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan had a long career in Hollywood before he was elected as the 40th president of the United States in 1984. He also served as governor of California from 1967-1975.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump was best known as a reality star and businessman before he won the U.S. presidential election in 2016. He was elected again in 2024.
Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Barr launched her own presidential run in 2012 under the banner of the Green Party, but was beaten out by Jill Stein.
Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia NixonTheo Wargo/Getty Images
Cynthia Nixon attempted a run for governor of New York and had a debate with then-incumbent Andrew Cuomo. She lost the Democratic primary by a margin of 500,000 votes.
Shirley Temple
Child star Shirley Temple ran for the California State Senate in 1967 and lost, but was later named U.S. ambassador to Ghana and ambassador to Czechoslovakia.
Sonny Bono
Sonny Bono might be best known for his singing career with ex-wife Cher, but he also served as a U.S. House Representative for California from 1995 until he died in 1998. Bono was also mayor of Palm Springs from 1988-1992.
Al Franken
Al Franken hosted The Al Franken Show and appeared on Saturday Night Live before transitioning to politics. He served as Minnesota’s senator from 2009 to 2018 and stepped down after several allegations of sexual assault were raised against him.
Herschel Walker
Herschel Walker launched a Georgia Senate race in 2022, and was defeated by Democrat Raphael Warnock.
Caitlyn Jenner
Caitlyn JennerFrazer Harrison/Getty Images
Caitlyn Jenner, who was best known for her Olympic career as well as her family’s foray in reality TV, joined the California gubernatorial race in 2021 to run against Gavin Newsom.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected as California’s 38th governor in 2003 and held the role until 2011.
Howard Stern
Howard Stern, a radio and TV host, was the Libertarian nominee during the 1994 New York governor race, but backed out after he was required to share his financial information.
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert, who is most known for his late night talk show and comedy career, attempted to run for president by adding his name to the ballot in South Carolina but was denied.
Tatiana — who is the granddaughter of late president John F. Kennedy and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — confirmed in an essay published by The New Yorker that she was battling acute myeloid leukemia and was given a year to live by doctors.
She learned that she has a “rare mutation called Inversion 3” that could not be “cured by a standard course” of treatment shortly after welcoming her daughter, Josephine, in May 2024. (Tatiana and her husband, George Moran, also share a son, Edwin Garrett Moran, who was born in 2022.)
“I did not — could not — believe that they were talking about me. I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew,” Tatiana wrote in The New Yorker. “I had a son whom I loved more than anything and a newborn I needed to take care of.”
News broke in December 2025 that Tatiana died. She was 35.
Keep scrolling for more information on Tatiana and her family.
George Moran
Tatiana Schlossberg met her future husband, George Moran, while they were both undergraduates at Yale University. Moran became a doctor at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, while Schlossberg worked for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post as an environmental reporter.
The New York Times reported in September 2017 that the couple had tied the knot at the Kennedy family home in Martha’s Vineyard in a ceremony officiated by former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.
Tatiana’s younger brother, Jack Schlossberg, announced on NBC’s Today in 2022 that his sister and her husband had welcomed their first baby, a son named Edwin Moran.
“I can’t get away from them,” Jack said of his sister and his newborn nephew. “I love them.”
Tatiana and George welcomed their youngest child, a daughter, in 2024. They have chosen to keep her name private.
Following her terminal cancer diagnosis, Tatiana credited George for his immense support following her cancer diagnosis.
“George did everything for me that he possibly could. He talked to all the doctors and insurance people that I didn’t want to talk to; he slept on the floor of the hospital; he didn’t get mad when I was raging on steroids and yelled at him that I did not like Schweppes ginger ale, only Canada Dry. He would go home to put our kids to bed and come back to bring me dinner,” she recalled in the New Yorker.
Tatiana added, “I know that not everyone can be married to a doctor, but, if you can, it’s a very good idea. He is perfect, and I feel so cheated and so sad that I don’t get to keep living the wonderful life I had with this kind, funny, handsome genius I managed to find.”
Edwin Moran
Tatiana’s younger brother, Jack, announced that he’d become an uncle during a 2022 interview on NBC’s Today.
“[Tatiana’s son’s] name is Edwin but I like to call him Jack,” the Kennedy heir teased.
In her New Yorker essay, Tatiana recalled that Edwin’s visits to the hospital were rare bright spots as she received cancer treatment.
“My son came to visit almost every day. … The nurses brought me warm blankets and let me sit on the floor of the skyway with my son, even though I wasn’t supposed to leave my room,” she recalled.
Tatiana reflected on a bonding experience with her son as her hair began to fall out during treatment.
“My hair started to fall out and I wore scarves to cover my head, remembering, vainly, each time I tied one on, how great my hair used to be; when my son came to visit, he wore them, too,” she said.
Josephine
Tatiana and George welcomed their daughter, Josephine, in May 2024. After giving birth, Tatiana spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital and was transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering to undergo a bone-marrow transplant. She later underwent chemotherapy at home.
She wrote in her New Yorker essay that one of her biggest fears after receiving a terminal diagnosis was that her newborn daughter wouldn’t remember her.
“My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears,” she wrote. “I didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter — I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants. I was gone for almost half of her first year of life. I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.”
When the family announced Tatiana’s death in December 2025, it was revealed that her daughter’s name is Josephine.
John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy
Tatiana is the granddaughter of late President John F. Kennedy and former first lady Jackie Kennedy. The Kennedys shared daughter Caroline Kennedy and son John F. Kennedy Jr. (They also lost two children, daughter Arabella and son Patrick.)
President Kennedy was killed at age 46 in a fatal shooting on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Jackie later married Greek-Argentine magnate Aristotle Onassis, who died at age 69 in 1975. Jackie succumbed to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 64 in May 1994.
Caroline Kennedy
John and Jackie Kennedy welcomed daughter Caroline Kennedy in November 1957. She was only 5 years old when her father was assassinated in 1963.
As an adult, Caroline worked at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, Edwin Schlossberg. They tied the knot at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Massachusetts in 1986 and later welcomed three children: Rose, Tatiana and Jack.
Caroline eventually followed in her family’s footsteps by entering politics as an ambassador to Australia and Japan during Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s presidential administrations.
Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg in November 2013.MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Tatiana credited her parents and siblings with helping to raise her two children while she underwent grueling cancer treatment.
“My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half. They have held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness in order to protect me from it,” she wrote in her New Yorker essay. “This has been a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day. For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Edwin Schlossberg
Caroline’s husband Edwin Schlossberg is an artist and designer. He founded the firm ESI Design and has written several books about design philosophy.
Edwin was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by President Obama in 2011, after receiving the prestigious National Arts Club Medal of Honor in 2004.
Rose Kennedy Schlossberg
Caroline and Edwin’s eldest daughter, Rose Schlossberg, arrived in June 1988 and was named after her maternal great-grandmother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.
She attended Harvard University, where she once gave Lindsay Lohan and her then-girlfriend Samantha Ronson a campus tour, according to the Boston Herald. She later received her master’s degree in interactive telecommunications from New York University.
Rose has worked as a production assistant on the TV show Brick City and the 2012 documentary Hard Times: Lost on Long Island. She co-wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning documentary series The Kalief Browder Story in 2017 and helped open a permanent exhibit for her late grandfather, John F. Kennedy, at the Kennedy Center in 2022.
She married restaurateur Rory McAuliffe in California in 2022.
John ‘Jack’ Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg
Caroline and Edwin’s youngest child, son Jack Schlossberg, was born in January 1993.
As an adult, he became popular on social media for his shirtless selfies and pop culture clapbacks — including criticizing American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy’s planned series about Jack’s late uncle John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. (The couple were killed in a 1999 plane crash, along with Carolyn’s sister Lauren Bessette.)
In November 2025, Jack announced plans to run for Congress in New York’s 12th congressional district in the 2026 midterm elections.
Caroline Kennedy, Edwin Schlossberg and Jack Schlossberg in May 2015.Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images
“I’m not running because I have all the answers to our problems. I’m running because the people of New York 12 do. I want to listen to your struggles, hear your stories, amplify your voice, go to Washington and execute on your behalf,” he wrote via Instagram.
Jack continued, “There is nowhere I’d rather be than in the arena fighting for my hometown. Over the next eight months, during the course of this campaign, I hope to meet as many of you as I can. If you see me on the street, please say hello. If I knock on your door, I hope we can have a conversation. Because politics should be personal.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Like most of her family, Tatiana has had a strained relationship with her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since he endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. RFK Jr. was later appointed by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which drew concern over his history of vaccine skepticism.
Tatiana wrote about her rift with her cousin in her New Yorker essay, revealing that his confirmation to the HHS role added stress during her illness. She pointed out that her husband George’s job at Columbia University was potentially in danger because the school was “one of the Trump Administration’s first targets in its crusade against alleged antisemitism on campuses.”
“If George changed jobs, we didn’t know if we’d be able to get insurance, now that I had a preëxisting condition,” she wrote. “Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised, along with millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly.”
Tatiana unequivocally distanced herself from RFK’s statement that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” during a 2023 appearance on the “Lex Fridman Podcast.”
“Bobby probably doesn’t remember the millions of people who were paralyzed or killed by polio before the vaccine was available,” she added. “My dad, who grew up in New York City in the nineteen-forties and fifties, does remember. Recently, I asked him what it was like when he got the vaccine. He said that it felt like freedom.”
p dir=”ltr”>After two years of not celebrating because of the war in nearby Gaza, Christmas festivities have returned to Bethlehem. Election officials in Honduras have named the winner of the country’s presidential election, after more than three weeks of counting the votes. And, in a year of record breaking immigration enforcement, deportations and detentions are separating families and in some cases that means the oldest children become the family breadwinner.
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p dir=”ltr”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by James Hider, Didi Schanche, Eric Westervelt and Lisa Thomson.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zo van Ginhoven. Our technical director is David Greenburg.
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p dir=”ltr”>And our deputy Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.
(00:00) Introduction (03:11) Christmas In Bethlehem (06:58) Honduras Election Result (10:40) Immigration Crackdown
White House envoy Steve Witkoff is in Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin, days before President Trump’s deadline for Russia to end the war in Ukraine or face sanctions. Some of the President’s core supporters are expressing disagreement with President Trump on issues from Gaza to Jeffrey Epstein, and the Justice Department has reportedly set up a grand jury investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the 2016 Presidential election.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Ryland Barton, Roberta Rampton, Megan Pratz, Janaya Williams and Ally Schweitzer. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
Lassy Mbouity, leader of the opposition party Les Socialistes Congolais and a candidate in Congo’s March 2026 presidential election, was abducted last Sunday in Brazzaville by armed and masked men — just days after surviving an assassination attempt.
His party blame the government. “We are convinced it’s Brazzaville’s dictatorial regime behind this. It’s not the first time. He’s been arrested before, and the people who came to his home were masked, armed, and using a vehicle without a number plate. That’s why we believe it’s a kidnapping. We plan to continue mobilizing — not just among socialists but across the Congolese population and diaspora.” Martial Mbourangon Pa’nucci, party spokesperson for Les Socialistes Congolais, said.
A number of opposition parties joined the Les Socialistes Congolais to issue a joint statement on Thursday condemning the Kidnapping and demanding Mbouity’s unconditional release.
“This cowardly act is part of a worrying escalation of terror, intimidation, and systematic human rights violations in the Republic of Congo. It’s a serious breach of personal freedom and a direct violation of Article 9 of the October 25, 2015 Constitution. We demand Lassy Mbouity’s immediate release.” Clément Mierassa, head of the Congolese Social Democratic Party, said.
Congo’s Human Rights Organization has also joined the chorus of alarm, it has issued an urgent appeal for help from diplomats and international bodies.
The government has yet to respond the accusations of kidnapping.
Their departure marks the end of 19 months spent in captivity in Libreville.
Following the military coup led by Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema in August 2023, Gabon’s ousted president Ali Bongo and his family had spent their time either locked up at home or in prison.
But five days after his wife Sylvia and son Noureddin were released from prison and transferred to house arrest awaiting their trial for embezzlement and money-laundering, Bongo and his family have arrived in Angola.
The Bongo dynasty had ruled Gabon for over 50 years before being ousted from power in a military coup by General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema in 2023.
Their departure into exile is the result of an agreement made between Angolan president João Lourenço and Oligui Nguema, Gabon’s new president, according to a statement by the Angolan presidency shared on Facebook.
Lourenço came to Libreville on Monday in order to improve relations with Oligui Nguema, who was declared the winner of a presidential election last month. Ties between the two countries had somewhat cooled down during the transition period following the coup.
The African Union, currently headed by Angolan president João Lourenço, had repeatedly asked Gabon’s new authorities to release Bongo and his family.
Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo’s lawyers had previously voiced concerns for their health condition during their detention in prison.
Chad’s former prime minister and opposition leader Succes Masra was taken into custody by security forces on Friday, in what his party called an “abduction.”
Public prosecutor Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye said Masra was arrested in connection with an intercommunal clash in Chad’s southwest province of Logone Occidental that killed 42 people.
Masra is accused of inciting hatred and violence through social media posts that called on the population to arm themselves against a community in the area, according to the prosecutor. It is unclear what specific posts the prosecutor was referring to.
Clashes between herders and farmers, who accuse the herders of grazing livestock on their land, are common in the Central African country.
Masra’s Transformers party said in a statement that their leader was “kidnapped” in his residence and expressed “deep concern over this brutal action carried out outside any known judicial procedures and in blatant violation of the civil and political rights guaranteed by the constitution.”
Ndolembai Sade Njesada, the party’s vice president, released video appearing to show armed men in uniforms escorting Masra out of a residential building.
Masra is one of the main opposition figures against President Mahamat Idriss Deby, who seized power after his father, who spent three decades in power, was killed fighting rebels in 2021.
In 2022, Masra fled Chad after the military government suspended his party and six others in a clampdown on protests against Deby’s decision to extend his time in power by two more years. More than 60 people were killed in the protests, which the government condemned as “an attempted coup.”
Following his return from exile he was appointed prime minister in January 2024 in a bid to appease tensions with the opposition, four months before the presidential election. Deby won the election, but the results were contested by the opposition which had claimed victory and alleged electoral fraud.
Masra resigned from his role as prime minister shortly after the election.
Ivory Coast’s opposition PDCI party has set up 45 polling stations across the country and in the diaspora to name a new leader
The move comes after Tidjane Thiam, elected its president in December 2023, was forced to resign due to his dual nationality.
Party statutes require its leader to be solely Ivorian. But Thiam was still a French citizen at the time of his election.
The manoeuvre is aimed at bypassing the challenge to his eligibility.
“We needed to be smart, and the PDCI has once again proven it’s a great party. A party of hope,” said party member, Pierre Kouamé.
Another PDCI member at the vote, Yoma Fouka Hervé, described it as a “strategic vote”.
“When the party calls on its loyal soldiers to show up at the political bureau, for the election of its various bodies, it’s important to answer the call,” he said.
Thiam officially renounced his French nationality in March and is now the only candidate to succeed himself as the PDCI’s leader.
But ahead of this strong comeback lies another looming battle, the presidential race.
Political analyst, Koua Geoffrey, said the PDCI was banking on “some political optimism”.
“It’s likely hoping for a dialogue to open between the opposition and the government, especially regarding a potential revision of the electoral roll,” he said.
This could allow Thiam to register without the risk of being struck off again.
“However, the legal and political hurdles are significant. In my view, this forces the PDCI to seriously consider a Plan B,” said Geoffrey.
That is because the 2025 presidential election is on the horizon and, once again, Thiam’s potential ineligibility stands in the way.
The 62-year-old banker’s candidacy for president of Ivory Coast is compromised, unless things shift before then.
Ivory Coast’s “coalition for peaceful change” or CAP Côte d’Ivoire, called for electoral reform ahead of the crucial vote for the next president, set to take place on 25 October 2025.
Among the recently-formed group’s demands for change are notably a revision of the electoral lists and the publication of election results by polling station.
The CAP-CI also called for “political dialogue” and criticised the independent electoral commission, which it sees as partial in its decision-making concerning the electoral lists.
On Monday, the coalition also announced that it will hold its first meeting on 31 May.
Formed in March earlier this year, the CAP regroups several parties opposing the presidential movement, with the notable exception of the movement created by former president Laurent Gbagbo.
Several opposition candidates have however been removed from the electoral lists, among them Tidjane Thiam, who coordinates the coalition.
While some were barred due to judicial convictions, such as in the case of Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé, Thiam was removed following a controversial court decision in April that concluded that he had lost his Ivorian citizenship in 2022.
The definitive electoral list with all eligible candidates is set to be released on 20 June.
Gabon is back in the community of African states after nearly two years out in the cold.
The African Union (AU) said Wednesday that sanctions against Libreville had been lifted, reintegrating the central African country into the bloc.
The AU’s peace and security council said in a statement on X that it was convinced with Gabon’s political transition.
Gabon was suspended when General Brice Oligui Nguema took power after overthrowing president Ali Bongo in August 2023.
In April, Oligui overwhelmingly won a presidential election where he was virtually unchallenged.
The lifting of sanctions comes just days before Oligui’s inauguration as president. Gabon’s foreign affairs ministry welcomed the removal of sanctions.
Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger remain suspended by the African Union for failure to revert to civilian rule. The countries are still ruled by juntas that overthrew popularly elected leaders.
